Answers
by urbanamore
Summary: Set sometime in Series One/Two, possible Jack/Ianto, Jack/OC pairings. Rated T for language/themes etc.
1. Chapter 1

I was in a rush. I didn't even know why I had picked those papers up. I needed to be more bloody careful_. Jack, you stupid bastard_, I scolded myself, _that wasn't a clever thing to do_. People almost found out. And sure, Ianto could shove some inforMattion into a computer when I got back, but that wasn't the _point_. I was being _reckless_. More retcon wasn't needed, but I was making it needed. And it was the fact that it was a perfectly lovely girl. A girl that I almost could relate to.

I decided that she didn't know enough to be retconned yet, but knew too much to be left alone. I would just get Ianto to figure out where she lived for me and go and pay her a visit.

To heck if she thought I was a creepy stalker man. She was half my age anyway. Scrap that, she was about a sixty fourth of my age, but no difference, she was nice. And she didn't know that. I liked her.

I stood on my slab and disappeared from view, slowly moving down into the Hub. Oh, the Hub, my home.

I liked it a lot, if I was honest. It stank of damp and gross and yuck but it was my home, and I lived there and worked there and I was as alien as everything else stored there. We went together pretty perfectly. Like a dog that looks like its owner, but instead of a dog, a house. Well, instead of a house, a secret underground working and living area.

I loved my life.

"Ianto, run some screening? I need to find out who someone was."

Ianto appeared at the top of the balcony, in front of my office, "Sure, sir, what do you need to check on?"

"Girl, about twenty two, red hair, dyed, shortish, lives in the Cardiff area, probably Cardiff uni she's just gone from, but not from around here, obvious English accent."

"Don't give me too much to go on then, hey." Ianto grumbled, rolling his eyes.

"Hey, no need for that tone. It's like a game. You know the one, what's it called? Where you flick the heads down when they don't match?"

"Guess who?" he raised an eyebrow.

"That's the one. We should buy that. That could be a fun night. Strip Guess Who."

He sighed and disappeared from view for a moment before reappearing at the bottom of the stairs. He walked over to Owen's work space and switched the monitor on so that the light slowly came on, displaying the view of his desktop.

He opened a program and filled in a couple of criteria, leaving it running and going off to make tea.

At that point Gwen and Owen entered from the tourist inforMattion entrance, dripping wet.

"It appears I just missed the rain." I chuckled, walking over to them.

"Don't even joke, Jack, I'm serious. First good hair day in a week." she pointed to her sopping hair with an unamused look on her face.

"Rather attractive, if you ask me."

"Don't take the piss, matey." Gwen said, staring at me.

"And as for you..." I gestured to Owen but he held a hand up.

"Whoa there. As much as I love you as a boss, I'm sorry, I'm straight." he joked, pulling a face.

"Oh, you don't know what disappointment that is to me." I dead-panned.

A ping came from Owen's monitor and I went to see the results of the search. Gwen and Owen also gathered around the screen to see what was going on. A list of sixteen girls had appeared on the screen, between the ages of twenty and twenty three, all from universities within a fifty mile radius from Cardiff and all from a town or city in England.

I clicked on each of them individually, their pictures popping up by their names, picked by the software from various social networking sites, no doubt. Once I clicked the second to last one, a picture was displayed of a girl with red hair, grinning wildly at the camera.

"THAT'S HER." I announced.

"Um, excuse me Jack, but who exactly is she?" Owen asked, looking at the girl on the screen and then back to me, his facial expression displaying the fact he was actually vaguely interested seeing as there was a mildly attractive girl involved.

"_She_ is a girl to whom I have already revealed too much, and must go and sort things with." Jack said to Owen.

"Retcon?" he asked, a undertone of sadness in his voice.

"No, I don't think so. I don't think I've revealed THAT too much, but I don't think it's safe to just leave her. No Mattter how much we cover things up, there are always conspiracies on the internet, a lot more true than they give themselves credit for." I sighed.

"And you get to make this trip because...?"

"Because, Owen, I've already spoken to her, and it will seem a lot less weird me appearing and 'fancy seeing you here again' -ing, than you turning up and seeming like a sex bandit at her door."

"Sex bandit?"

Gwen pulled a face, "Oh, don't try to argue with it."

"Right, I'm off then gang, you can probably go home for the night now, I'll let you know if there's anything needed to sort out." I said, grabbing the print out that had just been spewed from the printer and heading towards the slab in the middle of the Hub.

"As you always do." Owen pulled a face, grabbing his phone from off of his desk before disappearing out of the visitor inforMattion entrance.

"Are you sure there's nothing..." Gwen trailed off.

"Go home. Spend some time with Rhys." I commanded as the slab started to move up.

I watched Ianto drift across the Hub as I slowly disappeared from sight, and hoped that he wouldn't spend too much time clearing up and sorting things out before he went home. He needed less of a work life and more of another life.


	2. Chapter 2

I walked through the pouring rain, my hair getting plastered and sticking to my face, my trench coat protecting my body from the bulk of it. I looked over at the bay and saw that the water was lapping over the sides and spilling onto the concrete. There was definitely a storm brewing.

It was probably nothing, but whenever there was, I always felt like it had something to do with the rift.

I ducked into a shop entrance and read the address on the sheet of paper I had before shoving it back into my pocket and walking down the right street.

As I reached a block of posh art nouveau flats, I raised an eyebrow slightly, stepping out of the rain and into the lobby. I was pretty surprised I hadn't had to be buzzed in. I guessed someone had forgotten to lock the door properly.

I took the stairs, to impatient to wait for the lift to arrive, and as I reached the door knocked straight away, no time for hesitation.

There was no reply.

I waited for a second, and knocked again, impulsively tapping my foot on the floor. Still no answer.

Maybe she was out...

I checked my phone and saw that I had a new message from Torchwood; "Jack, UNIT have already been to the flat you identified as the home of the girl. They are seen on the CCTV taking a girl from the premises about half an hour prior to now."

I yelled. Now I was mad. I had always hated UNIT.

I took my phone from my pocket and smacked the number in.

"What the hell did you do that for?" I demanded into my phone.

"Do what exactly, Jack? You know you shouldn't use this number directly." Martha rattled back in her stupidly annoying work voice.

"Do I sound like I give a fuck? Since when were you kidnapping innocent bystanders off of the street?" I said, my anger building.

"For your information, Captain Jack Harkness, she wasn't as innocent as you might have thought. Obviously you aren't as informed as you used to be."

"Look, either you get your ass down to the Hub in the next half an hour or I come down to UNIT. Your choice."

I hung up and stormed back to the Hub, tapping my foot impatiently as the slab moved slowly down into the deep insides of my home and work place.

I stomped over to the nearest workspace which appeared to be Gwen's and logged on to Ianto's username, where the page he had last had up appeared, with the inforMattion about the girl, Charlie.

There was nothing remotely unusual about her, just a girl from a university. I copied her name and pasted it into the special search engine we used to find any interesting inforMattion on anybody. The only things that came up that might have been of any significance was the fact that she appeared to vanish from the earth for three months. Ah, that probably _was _important. It said that she had reportedly said she was going on a gap holiday with someone, but her passport wasn't used for the whole duration of the time. Could be passed off as nothing, but if UNIT were involved, it obviously wasn't. Fucks sake.

* * *

Martha stood on the slab and I let her in, watching her slowly sink into the Hub and into my vision.

"So what the hell do you think you're doing kidnapping people off the street now?" I demanded, feeling overly protective of this girl who I knew almost nothing of.

"I think I'm trying to find out information that would be of high importance and helpfulness to UNIT." She replied, dusting off her suit jacket.

"Oh, do share. What highly important information would this be then? And don't give me any of that 'strictly confidential' bullshit, because you know who we are, Martha, and you know we could find out if we wanted. It's just a hell load easier if you tell me straight out." I said, face to face with her.

As much as I could be with her being as short as she was.

"Okay Jack, I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. The Doctor hasn't been seen around here for a while, and we could really do with getting in contact with him. We need a means of contacting him, and any information on the matter would be helpful. I've obviously spoken to you previously about this matter and you are," she stressed the word, "_unwilling_ to help in any way, so that's where this girl comes in. She 'disappeared' for three months on a gap year. Only we don't think she went on a gap year."

"You think she went off with the Doctor." I stated, looking straight at her.

"Exactly what I think and I'll tell you for why. She went off on this three month 'gap holiday'. One of her friends from sixth form reported her missing when she saw her 'vanish into thin air in a police box'. Obviously nobody believed this and the girl ended up having counselling for seeing things. Either way, she wasn't around for three months, but her passport wasn't used to go anywhere in those three months. She then reappears for whatever reason she got dumped, and now is obviously mentally scarred from it." Martha said matter of factly.

"Okay, my first point, is that he would not _dump_ anyone off. Secondly, she is not mentally scarred, although kidnapping her from her home isn't really going to help things if I'm honest with you." I said, dead pan.

Martha rolled her eyes, "Well if you have a better suggestion..."

"I do. Here's what you're going to do. You no doubt have her locked up somewhere in UNIT. Release her, bring her here. You can do all the questioning you want once she's here. But she had human rights, and I want to be able to see her at all times." I said authoritively.

She raised an eyebrow, looking at me, "You may be used to telling your staff and the police and even government what to do, Jack, but we're not just some little people you can control."

"Just do it. You know I can get answers."

"I also know that you have answers you're not willing to tell us."

I looked at her for a second before she huffed, "Fine, I'll bring her here. I'll be back in an hour."

As Martha stormed out of the visitor information entrance I sat down, spinning in the chair. I had to admit, I didn't have any intention of helping out UNIT or giving them the information I found out, but I did feel the need to protect this girl and was also quite interested to find out what she knew about the Doctor. Because not many people did know much, and any information was valuable.


End file.
